Should the DOD have disciplined their equity chief Kelisa Wing for her anti-white Twitter posts?

MayCaesar

I do not think that anyone should be disciplined by their employer for something they do in a non-employee capacity. I assume that this person was posting on Twitter out if her own volition (even if she did so during her work time), rather than as part of her work duty, hence it is none of DOD's business what she was doing there. Now, one could reprimand her for not paying attention to the training and doing something else instead, but... let us be honest, everyone does this.

When I come to my office, I am there to do my work as a professional. When I leave my office, I am there to live my private life and interact with whatever private companies I want however I want. My employer's reach must end at the office building's front door, even (or especially) that employer is the federal government.

just_sayin

@MayCaesar
The libertarian in me agrees with you that what she does on her own time, unless she commits a crime, should be her own business.  As a contractor for government agencies I am always aware of the political environment I work in.  There tend to be extremes in different departments and agencies.  The contracts I worked with the military and SS were more conservative with others being more liberal, and the EPA being left of Castro.  I would not want my politics held against me.  And I do believe they would have been if anyone at the EPA knew mine.

I do think that her conduct at the DoD EA seminars that she references is inappropriate and should be addressed.  It is more likely that Charles Mason will be let out of  prison than for a government employee, especially one spouting leftist racism, to be fired under Biden.  I do think that she should be have to apologize and publicly admit that the legal definition of racism does not include any clause about power dynamics or excluding some races. 

Dreamer

Argument Topic: Kelisa Wing did nothing wrong. If anything she should be rewarded. She shouldn't have lost her job.

Look at her tweet, she did nothing wrong and explains her words.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/pentagon-diversity-chief-receives-no-disciplinary-action-after-probe-into-anti-white-posts/ar-AA190fZY

just_sayin

@Dreamer
To my knowledge the woman was not disciplined at all.  The Pentagon said her comments were inappropriate, but private and did not discipline her for those reasons.  However, if she did engage with the woman she called "Karen" who had "CAUdacity" and falsely claimed that Blacks can't be racist and tried to implement policies based on a non-legal definition of racism that permits racism against whites, she should be disciplined.  She's out of the position she was in.  Which is a good thing.  We need fewer people with racist views, like this woman, in positions that are suppose to create equal environments.  

MayCaesar

just_sayin said:

@MayCaesar
The libertarian in me agrees with you that what she does on her own time, unless she commits a crime, should be her own business.  As a contractor for government agencies I am always aware of the political environment I work in.  There tend to be extremes in different departments and agencies.  The contracts I worked with the military and SS were more conservative with others being more liberal, and the EPA being left of Castro.  I would not want my politics held against me.  And I do believe they would have been if anyone at the EPA knew mine.

I do think that her conduct at the DoD EA seminars that she references is inappropriate and should be addressed.  It is more likely that Charles Mason will be let out of  prison than for a government employee, especially one spouting leftist racism, to be fired under Biden.  I do think that she should be have to apologize and publicly admit that the legal definition of racism does not include any clause about power dynamics or excluding some races. 

But how is her being disciplined for posting something on Twitter during a work training different from you being disciplined for talking to me here while at work? One could make the argument that high-ranked public officials should be held to a higher standards than regular employees and should not spend their time tweeting while getting paid by the taxpayers - but that would only be an argument against her doing something work-unrelated during working hours in general, and have nothing to do with the actual content of her tweet. For all other intents and purposes, her tweet was an expression of her personal opinion outside of her official capacity.

As I see it, the best way to hold a high-ranked appointed official responsible for such behavior is to elect someone on the next election who will appoint better officials. Biden is apparently okay with appointing open racists to positions such as this; in my view this is unacceptable, and were I able to vote in this country (and if I cared enough to vote), he would be immediately out of the list of the candidates I might consider voting for. That such people are holding "equity chief" positions at the Department of Defense is a giant failure of the current administration, but I do not think that, once appointed, their behavior of this kind should be illegal.

On a side note, I would ask a larger question: why does such a position even exists? "Equity chief", what is that and what utility does it have to anyone? Sounds like a giant waste of the taxpayers' money. I think that the government must be as barebones as possible, serving only the most essential functions and being maintained at the lowest expense possible. There is no imaginable universe in which an "equity chief" at the Department of Defense, of all organizations, is essential for its functionality. Private companies are free to waste their resources however they want, but taxpayer-funded companies must not indulge in such splurging.

just_sayin

@MayCaesar
I'm not saying she should be disciplined for being on Twitter, instead if she confronted "Karen" and called her that, and "gave it to her" at a work training session and misrepresented what racism is, then that should be what she is disciplined for.  

Nomenclature

@just_sayin

As a contractor for government agencies

Now why does it not surprise me to learn that the government employs fanatics who work diligently to bend reality around whatever they want to believe.

If you are the type of person the government employs then we are all doomed.

MineSubCraftStarved

@MayCaesar

I do not think that anyone should be disciplined by their employer for something they do in a non-employee capacity.

That is the choice of the corporation. Like individuals, organizations have rights as well. Thus, a business has the full right to fire an employee were it to deem it's actions unproductive towards the benefit of the organization. When you join a company, you sign a contract, and where you to break your terms of contract, your employee has every right to also break off from the contract.
Were the CEO of a large computing company come out tomorrow and publicly call African Americans the N-word, than the shareholders of a company would have the full right to evict the CEO from his position in said company. In fact, in a financial sense, a company has the responsibility to fire/reprimand employees that present a worse image of them as that would ultimately harm public relations and thus profits. Specifically relating back to Kelisa wing, the DOD should've had full rights to discipline or fire her... In fact, the DOD has the personal responsibility to fire such a person as it hurts their public image.

MayCaesar

@MineSubCraftStarved

The Department of Defense is a part of the federal government, not a private business. As such, it is a subject to certain restrictions that private businesses are not (or, at least, should not be). The space of the contract terms that private individuals can agree on is much wider than that that public officials can.

A Google CEO is free to say, "We are establishing a policy according to which no Google employee is allowed to speak in favor of Christianity" (assuming the contract terms signed by all employees to date allow for it). Joe Biden is not free to say the same thing: not only would it be a violation of the Constitution, but it would also be an overreach of the presidential powers. If Joe Biden hated Christians' guts, but a White House cleaning lady was an open Christian and promoted her views openly, then he would have to tolerate it.

Public image of the Department of Defense absolutely cannot be used as an excuse to fire someone. This is not Russia or China where the government gets rid of anyone working for it giving it a bad rep. Only citizens have an ability to do so through the democratic process.

MineSubCraftStarved

@MayCaesar

The Department of Defense is a part of the federal government, 

You appear to be backtracking what you said. You related your argument to all companies and employers, not specifically the government. However, now you appear to be moving it towards purely the scope of the government. What gives?

Joe Biden is not free to say the same thing: not only would it be a violation of the Constitution, but it would also be an overreach of the presidential powers. If Joe Biden hated Christians' guts, but a White House cleaning lady was an open Christian and promoted her views openly, then he would have to tolerate it.

But that's only because the government forced itself into a contract with the constitution... If a private business listed in its terms that it cannot discriminate based on religion then it should be accountable similar to how the government can be accountable for violation of the free exercise clause.

I think the crucial flaw in your argumentation is the notion that a government and a business as somehow completely different entities. While both have different goals, one being for profit, and another for control. Both are simply different forms of organizations. Both are collectives of individuals that are set out to achieve certain goals. Both arise from natural human desires, one for protection, and another for personal individual success. I think the same rights that any organization has is applicable equally to both governments and businesses, as both are extensions of the individuals through collectives and thus extensions of their same rights.
While you may specifically point to the fact in America that the government is applicable to violating its contract with the constitution, and thus may not fire employees based on their beliefs. This is not a special rule that all governments are required to follow. While we may agree that it is preferable for a government to abstain from taking such actions, unless it holds itself a contract saying otherwise, it has full rights to fire anyone it so chooses, similar to a business or any other sort of organization.

The distinction between preferability and rights should be taken into account. I may prefer for a government to not take a specific action, but if they do not have a contract binding to a certain option in such a scenario, they have the full right to take the specified action. Just like a buissness

MayCaesar

@MineSubCraftStarved

The difference is, the part of the argument applying to all companies in principle had no legal implications: I was merely talking about what, in my view, a good work culture would look like. I absolutely do not dispute that a private company should be able to fire/discipline its employees for anything (including nothing at all), provided the mutually signed contract allows for it. At the same time, I find the practice of companies policing their employees's speech to be disgusting and would like to see as little of it as possible.

This is very different for a public company that exists not as a consequence of someone deciding to build something and make a profit, but as a consequence of the public representatives building a tax-funded system with the purpose to better fulfill the duties imposed on them by the Constitution. The argument that it is fundametally a similar entity to a private company runs against the wall of harsh reality: government is fundamentally a coercice institution, and said company runs not on the voluntary contributions of investors and customers, but on the resources extorted from the population. A public company should not be able to collect $100 from my neighbor against his will, then fire me for saying that I like my neighbor's religious views.

The government has not signed a "contract with the Constitution": the Constitution is not an economical agent and does not have any agency or ability to sign anything. The government is the organization instituted to uphold the Constitution, and its institution was not consented upon by most residents of the area it claims to control in any meaningful way. There was never a moment where I sit at a table with a government representative and was offered a paper to sign, with the possibility of walking out and going to a different company. I can quit a Google office and go to Facebook and sign an employment contract there; I cannot quit a "US" office and go to Facebook instead. I have to pay taxes to the IRS; I cannot pay taxes to Walmart instead.

MineSubCraftStarved

@MayCaesar

I absolutely do not dispute that a private company should be able to fire/discipline its employees for anything (including nothing at all), provided the mutually signed contract allows for it. At the same time, I find the practice of companies policing their employees' speech to be disgusting and would like to see as little of it as possible.

Agreed.

government is fundamentally a coercive institution and said the company runs not on the voluntary contributions of investors and customers, but on the resources extorted from the population.

Not necessarily, governments can definitely operate based on tax-optional payments rather than making them required and would thus not be a coercive institution.
However, the point should be made that companies have in the past enforced their own legislations and rules onto unwilling subjects, such as the British East India Company and the Dutch East Indies, in India and Indonesia respectively.
It is also possible for a government to not enforce taxes on everyone by birth, and thus allow people the intrinsic choice of whether or not to be subject to their taxes, laws, and civil protections. Making it a fundamentally consensual institution(in that case at least), contradictory to your argument.
Governments, while tending to oppression, do not always constitute an institution that is built for such a purpose, nor does it fulfill such a purpose initially. As those people initially within a new government, at least in theory, would always be given the choice to leave to another government of their personal choice.

A public company should not be able to collect $100 from my neighbor against his will, then fire me for saying that I like my neighbor's religious views.

Why should the fact that the government levies taxes mean it can't fire employees who express contradictory viewpoints?

The government has not signed a "contract with the Constitution": the Constitution is not an economical agent and does not have any agency or ability to sign anything.

While it is not economic in most respects, the fundamental aspects of this contract when compared to private contracts do align. Both are consensual contracts in which a company or government restricts itself to certain laws and expenditures. Both have terms and policies which make them identical in this case(public and private contracts).

The government is the organization instituted to uphold the Constitution, and its institution was not consented upon by most residents of the area it claims to control in any meaningful way.

But that is done out of the government's willing choice to do so... As I stated previously, a government and a business are identical in terms of rights because they are extensions of an individual's right.
A small village and a government like the USSR, widely differs in terms of resources, control, and immigration restrictions. However, even if the town imposed no oppressive measures, IE, no taxes, no prison, free immigration, and all policies are kept only by unanimous consent from the population, it is still a government, yet it is not fundamentally oppressive.
A business can also be oppressive in similar respects to a government like in previous examples mentioned. The fact that most governments today are oppressive does not make the institution of government always oppressive, nor does it make it any less of an organization like a business or NGO.

MayCaesar

MineSubCraftStarved said:

Not necessarily, governments can definitely operate based on tax-optional payments rather than making them required and would thus not be a coercive institution.

However, the point should be made that companies have in the past enforced their own legislations and rules onto unwilling subjects, such as the British East India Company and the Dutch East Indies, in India and Indonesia respectively.
It is also possible for a government to not enforce taxes on everyone by birth, and thus allow people the intrinsic choice of whether or not to be subject to their taxes, laws, and civil protections. Making it a fundamentally consensual institution(in that case at least), contradictory to your argument.
Governments, while tending to oppression, do not always constitute an institution that is built for such a purpose, nor does it fulfill such a purpose initially. As those people initially within a new government, at least in theory, would always be given the choice to leave to another government of their personal choice.

In that case it would just be a private company. This is not what we commonly refer to as the "government". The government, by definition, is an organization having the legal monopoly on use of force: it is inherently coercive, regardless of how many layers of abstraction coercion is hidden behind.

A private company that uses force against unwilling subjects either does so with the government's sanction (in which case the government is the originator of that force), or without (in which case the government is not doing its job properly). In both cases it acts as a coercive agent and not as a legitimate market player.

MineSubCraftStarved said:

Why should the fact that the government levies taxes mean it can't fire employees who express contradictory viewpoints?

Because the government represents the taxpayers: they pay taxes in exchange for public officials representing their interests. Employees are also taxpayers and their interests must be represented regardless of what viewpoints they have and express. Similarly, everyone else is a taxpayer who cannot be deprived of information other people try to convey to them by said representatives. 

In case this is not true, we are dealing not with a representative, but with a tyrannical government.

MineSubCraftStarved said:

While it is not economic in most respects, the fundamental aspects of this contract when compared to private contracts do align. Both are consensual contracts in which a company or government restricts itself to certain laws and expenditures. Both have terms and policies which make them identical in this case(public and private contracts).

Not at all. A contract only includes the parties that have consented to it. There cannot be a contract that includes an unwilling cosigner. If the Constitution only applied to those who have explicitly consented to it, then your argument would be valid - however, this is not the case.

MineSubCraftStarved said:

But that is done out of the government's willing choice to do so... As I stated previously, a government and a business are identical in terms of rights because they are extensions of an individual's right.

A small village and a government like the USSR, widely differs in terms of resources, control, and immigration restrictions. However, even if the town imposed no oppressive measures, IE, no taxes, no prison, free immigration, and all policies are kept only by unanimous consent from the population, it is still a government, yet it is not fundamentally oppressive.
A business can also be oppressive in similar respects to a government like in previous examples mentioned. The fact that most governments today are oppressive does not make the institution of government always oppressive, nor does it make it any less of an organization like a business or NGO.

The government is not an individual, but an organization: it cannot make any choices, only its members can. Same goes for the business. The difference is that the business cannot force its will on anyone while the government can. The government officials' "willing choice" is functionally (in this context) similar to a slave owner's "willing choice".

I have not used the term "oppressive" when talking about the government. My argument was about the fundamental nature of the government, not about how particular governments choose to manifest that nature. Obviously there can be a highly benevolent government that never silences anyone, never imposes its will on anyone beyond the bare minimum required to prevent human right violations, never reaches over its extremely limited constitutional powers... Yet its essence always remains the same: it is that of a thug with a gun. The thug may choose not to shoot the gun, but the potential and the legal mandate is always there.

It is as if you lived in Saudi Arabia as a man and had a wife. You could be a very good guy who never violates your wife's rights, yet the government sanctions such violations, and your wife is always under threat of you doing so legally. The fact that you choose not to does not change the nature of the arrangement.

MineSubCraftStarved

@MayCaesar

it is inherently coercive, regardless of how many layers of abstraction coercion is hidden behind.

Not necessarily, those who immigrate to a new government consent to the contract imposed upon them. They agree to be sent to prison and have their property confiscated in accordance with the coercion you are referring to. Akin to how many private banks(rather than the government) operate today.
So is what we typically refer to as a "government" or "country," really only a government of natural-born citizens, rather than immigrants, since immigrants consent to it?

If the Constitution only applied to those who have explicitly consented to it, then your argument would be valid - however, this is not the case.

But many governments do initially, at the start of the United States(for example), all those living inside the land consented to the government existing there and thus agreed to the constitution(those like Loyalists, who opposed it, did leave out their own personal choice). Now, you can then say that at the very next moment when a person is born and forced into this contract, the government becomes fundamentally coercive. But it did not start out as such initially, and thus a government is not always coercive.
Another example would be the Mormon State that existed in Utah during the early to the mid-19th century. Those who initially populated the region were settlers who consented to follow their Mormon beliefs and thus all joined the government of their own free volition. They had a military, a set of laws, and a system to enforce such laws, so I fail to see how the Mormon institution is not a government but rather a private organization as it was the arbiter of peace and control(to which all consented). It was a consensual government.

The government is not an individual, but an organization: it cannot make any choices, only its members can. The same goes for the business.

But the individuals within an organization do dictate its motives and actions, and thus as an extension of an individual's will, an organization exists with the same rights as the latter party. So it can certainly make choices.

The difference is that the business cannot force its will on anyone while the government can. The government officials' "willing choice" is functionally (in this context) similar to a slave owner's "willing choice".

A business can certainly force its will onto other individuals. The reason that the government enforces jail time for the sake of the non-aggression principle is that most people or most of the rulers in a country deem it to be important enough to be enforced. In a government, laws are done by the will of the most influential. Similarly, if a company were to take the votes and considerations of its shareholders and then institute forced-Union memberships and dress codes, how would that be any different from the government coercively(as you put it) forcing vaccine mandates? After all, both are coercive measures forcefully instituted upon their subjects, and while you may argue that you can always move to another company to avoid such measures, the same can be said for a government.
So how is one fundamentally coercive while another is not? Both can be coercive, and can't be at different situations.

A government can only be coercive if it enforces itself onto natural-born citizens who never had the chance to accept the government's control over themselves in the first place. But you can still have a government with citizenship based on meritocracy(or some other measure) and thus have it be inherently consensual(rather than inherited). As all those part of it immigrated there and consented willingly to joining it and it's laws.

MayCaesar

@MineSubCraftStarved

Okay, let us parse this argument. I believe that you misrepresent the nature of the government.

MineSubCraftStarved said:

Not necessarily, those who immigrate to a new government consent to the contract imposed upon them. They agree to be sent to prison and have their property confiscated in accordance with the coercion you are referring to. Akin to how many private banks(rather than the government) operate today.

So is what we typically refer to as a "government" or "country," really only a government of natural-born citizens, rather than immigrants, since immigrants consent to it?

This implies that the entity in question itself exist as a consequence of consent - yet this is not the case. If you enter a suburban area run by a criminal gang, do you consent to being mugged? No jurisdiction in human history would ever make such a claim. Yet why is this claim indefensible? It is indefensible precisely because the criminal gang operates in that area as a consequence of coercion and not consent.

If the government in this sense is equivalent to a criminal gang, then the consent to its demands is not automatically assuming upon entering the territory it claims to own. Notice the word "claims" here: it is important to distinguish existence of a claim on something from ownership of that something. If I claim that I own your house, I will not suddenly gain possession of your house. The question then is whether the government's claim on owning the land it claims to do is legitimate, that is a consequence of consent from all the relevant parties involved. Is this the case though? You said:

MineSubCraftStarved said:

But many governments do initially, at the start of the United States(for example), all those living inside the land consented to the government existing there and thus agreed to the constitution(those like Loyalists, who opposed it, did leave out their own personal choice). Now, you can then say that at the very next moment when a person is born and forced into this contract, the government becomes fundamentally coercive. But it did not start out as such initially, and thus a government is not always coercive.

Another example would be the Mormon State that existed in Utah during the early to the mid-19th century. Those who initially populated the region were settlers who consented to follow their Mormon beliefs and thus all joined the government of their own free volition. They had a military, a set of laws, and a system to enforce such laws, so I fail to see how the Mormon institution is not a government but rather a private organization as it was the arbiter of peace and control(to which all consented). It was a consensual government.

Notice how you assume that everyone living on this land by nature of staying automatically consents to being ruled by the government. Do you really think that this is how consent works? If I put a gun to your head and tell you to hand me over your wallet and you do so, can I claim that you consented to me having your wallet because you chose to not keep it? This claim would make exactly as much sense as the claim that I consented to my land being run by the government by nature of not fleeing my land when threatened by it.

Furthermore, governments claim possession of land that no one has settled routinely. The claim that the government owns a chunk of desert in Wyoming no one lives in is dubious at best, and were a Chinese citizen walk onto that land and start building a house there, there would be no case to be made for this citizen consenting to some extraneous entity imposing its laws on him. What gives? If someone claims to own a patch of dirt near my house and I do not immediately mount a defense there, the dirt immediately goes to that person? What if I claim to own everything on Mars - which, to my knowledge, nobody owns at the moment? If nobody immediately goes there and defends the land, then I will now be the owner of Mars? That is absolutely preposterous.

The less localized one's claims of ownership become, the less defensible they are. Claiming that I own the house I live in is simple and no reasonable person would object to that claim. Claiming that I own a patch of land in Amazonia (where I have never been) simply because I say so and no one does anything to prevent me from owning it though? Try defending that in court.

Coercion is the act of someone wanting to do something that does not directly affect other people's lives and someone else saying, "No, you cannot, and I will retaliate if you do so". The fact that someone has not directly opposed some claim does not imply that they have consented to that claim, otherwise virtually every imaginable claim would be automatically assumed to be true. I could whisper right now, "I own MineSubCraftStarved's computer and am going to come to his house and retrieve it tomorrow", and if you did not immediately take your gun and assume a combat stance near your computer in order to defend it against my claim, then the computer would be mine. Sorry, but this is not how the concept of ownership works, and this is not how the concepts of consent and coercion work.

You further say:

MineSubCraftStarved said:

But the individuals within an organization do dictate its motives and actions, and thus as an extension of an individual's will, an organization exists with the same rights as the latter party. So it can certainly make choices.

That you refer to "an organization" here is a massive overgeneralization for organizations may differ significantly in their functionality. Yakuza is an organization, and Google is an organization; my local labor union is an organization, and ISIS is an organization. To say that these organizations are in any way similar and that they exist by the same right as the individual composing them would be to make yet another indefensible statement. ISIS' actions have quite a bit less legitimacy than, say, the actions of a chef serving its fighters supper. And the choices of ISIS do not represent that chef's choices automatically, just like the choices of the local chess club I am a member of do not represent my choices. The chess club may choose to relocate to a different part of the country, something that is not a choice I have made in any sensible way.

Further you specifically talk about "a business", which is a very particular type of an organization. I will assume here that you are talking about a legitimate business, i.e. a business formed as a consequence of consensual partnership between individuals. Yet again you overgeneralize the matters by talking about it "forcing" its will onto other individuals:

MineSubCraftStarved said:

A business can certainly force its will onto other individuals. The reason that the government enforces jail time for the sake of the non-aggression principle is that most people or most of the rulers in a country deem it to be important enough to be enforced. In a government, laws are done by the will of the most influential. Similarly, if a company were to take the votes and considerations of its shareholders and then institute forced-Union memberships and dress codes, how would that be any different from the government coercively(as you put it) forcing vaccine mandates? After all, both are coercive measures forcefully instituted upon their subjects, and while you may argue that you can always move to another company to avoid such measures, the same can be said for a government.

So how is one fundamentally coercive while another is not? Both can be coercive, and can't be at different situations.

A government can only be coercive if it enforces itself onto natural-born citizens who never had the chance to accept the government's control over themselves in the first place. But you can still have a government with citizenship based on meritocracy(or some other measure) and thus have it be inherently consensual(rather than inherited). As all those part of it immigrated there and consented willingly to joining it and it's laws.

This is simply not true in general - in fact, it is true in a small minority of cases. Walmart cannot force anything on anyone who does not want to do any business with it, regardless of what members of Walmart believe important enough to be enforced. All Walmart shoppers can vote for Walmart roasting me for dinner, yet Walmart will not acquire the right to do so. The government jailing me for me disagreeing with its arbitrary laws is functionally similar to Walmart roasting me for dinner for me being a target of its democratic policy.

Now, if I sign a contract with Walmart according to which its members can vote for me being roasted for dinner and which will force me to surrender myself to them, then such an action will be legitimate. It is predicated on two assumptions: A) Walmart is a non-coercive organization to begin with and I have consented to it roasting me for dinner. In case of the government, as I showed earlier, neither of these two assumptions holds, therefore making it jailing me illegitimate from the voluntaristic standpoint. If you reject the voluntaristic standpoint itself and want to argue that coercion sometimes is necessary/inevitable, then that is a very different (and much more defensible) argument. But the argument that it is not a coercive organization, or that its actions towards me are not coercive, does not stand up to any degree of scrutiny.

---

Even if you reject all of the above reasoning (which I would be very curious to hear why), you have to understand the idea that me claiming that I own Mars does not make me own Mars. You should be able to extrapolate that idea to government's claims on unsettled land, at least. That should, in turn, result in you concluding that anyone should be free to settle that land without being subjected to any pressure from any individuals or organizations. That alone already makes all of the current governments illegitimate from the voluntaristic perspective, since every single government lays a claim on a part of land that no one lives in or uses for any immediate purposes - and has the capacity and legal permission to use violent force to displace anyone who chooses to claim it without agreeing to abide by its (from that person's perspective, arbitrary) laws.

None of that implies that governments are somehow evil or illegitimate in some absolute sense. But it does imply that they are fundamentally coercive organizations, unlike private business that are (to the extent to which they do not collude with the [coercive] government or any other coercive organization) fundamentally consensual organizations. You are free to argue that existence of, at least, one coercive organization is necessary - but the argument that the government is not such an organization is not logical.

MineSubCraftStarved

@MayCaesar

If you enter a suburban area run by a criminal gang, do you consent to be mugged? No jurisdiction in human history would ever make such a claim. Yet why is this claim indefensible? It is indefensible precisely because the criminal gang operates in that area as a consequence of coercion and not consent.

You simply cannot compare the immigration process to stepping onto gang turf. Immigration is a highly regulated process, unlike the latter, you have full knowledge of your entering another country and its laws, meanwhile, for a gang, you lack such knowledge. 

Notice how you assume that everyone living on this land by nature of staying automatically consents to be ruled by the government.

I never said that, I even gave an analogy with the Mormons that all initial citizens of the republic came through immigration and thus volunteered to be part of said government. I never denied that governments tend to be more coercive than other organizations like businesses. But that does not take away from the fact that they are not always coercive, nor does that make them have any fewer rights than businesses.

The less localized one's claims of ownership become, the less defensible they are. Claiming that I own the house I live in is simple and no reasonable person would object to that claim. Claiming that I own a patch of land in Amazonia (where I have never been) simply because I say so and no one does anything to prevent me from owning it though? Try defending that in court.

I don't see how this is relevant.

Yakuza is an organization, Google is an organization; my local labor union is an organization, and ISIS is an organization.

Sure, some may be more coercive than others and may infringe on the rights of other individuals or organizations than others. But they still have the same fundamental rights, regardless of whether or not they violated those same rights held by others. A murderer locked up in prison has the same amount of rights as any other normal citizen of a country. Despite the fact that one committed far more coercive acts than the other. Since individuals all share the same rights, we can apply a similar logic to organizations as they are both extensions of a person's individual liberty(the liberty of their controllers, that is). Thus, Communist China(a government) and your local coffee shop(a business) both share the same rights precisely because they are both organizations.

This is simply not true in general - in fact, it is true in a small minority of cases.

Yet you concede it is still true in some! Thus you cannot say definitely that businesses are always non-coercive and governments are always coercive without contradicting your statement.

It is predicated on two assumptions: A) Walmart is a non-coercive organization, to begin with, and  I have consented to it roasting me for dinner. In the case of the government, as I showed earlier, neither of these two assumptions holds

Then explain to me how if you immigrate to a country, you are not consenting to its laws, rules, and regulations. If you immigrate to a country you agree to a contract, that being its legislation and constitution. How is immigration so different from moving from one company to another?

Even if you reject all of the above reasoning (which I would be very curious to hear why), you have to understand the idea that my claiming that I own Mars does not make me on Mars. You should be able to extrapolate that idea to the government's claims on unsettled land, at least.

I don't see how that's relevant... I don't believe we are discussing property principles.

That alone already makes all of the current governments illegitimate from the voluntaristic perspective, since every single government lays a claim on a part of the land that no one lives in or uses for any immediate purposes

Perhaps for natural-born citizens. But regarding immigrants, if you move to another country that practices a policy of land removal, and then have your land taken, that was by your consent. Akin to the bank taking your house after you don't have enough money to pay your mortgage.

You are free to argue that the existence of, at least, one coercive organization is necessary - but the argument that the government is not such an organization is not logical.

My point is not that governments are fundamentally non-coercive(I concede that they tend to be coercive). But the point I've been making is that a government institution has the same rights as any other business or individual.
Nor does a government always need to be coercive. (Nor is it always authoritative)

MayCaesar

MineSubCraftStarved said:

You simply cannot compare the immigration process to stepping onto gang turf. Immigration is a highly regulated process, unlike the latter, you have full knowledge of your entering another country and its laws, meanwhile, for a gang, you lack such knowledge. 

The difference is only in how efficient the system is. In essence, it is the same thing: a group of people arbitrarily deciding who can and who cannot enter a large piece of land (most of it untamed) and on what terms. If a gang takes over your neighborhood and establishes a well-documented and enforced immigration system, you will not see this as exactly legitimate, will you? For some reason governments are assumed to be legitimate while gangs are not, yet no one can ever point out where the difference in legitimacy comes from.

MineSubCraftStarved said:

I never said that, I even gave an analogy with the Mormons that all initial citizens of the republic came through immigration and thus volunteered to be part of said government. I never denied that governments tend to be more coercive than other organizations like businesses. But that does not take away from the fact that they are not always coercive, nor does that make them have any fewer rights than businesses.

I have yet to see an example of the government that is ever not coercive. "Please pay your taxes; if you do not want to, that is fine too" - ever heard a government state something of this kind?

MineSubCraftStarved said:

I don't see how this is relevant.

It is relevant to my point that the government, unlike private organizations, is legally allowed to claim undeveloped land and control it. Private organizations do not get ownership of anything they do not produce, develop or purchase, while the government somehow owns everything by default. Which, again, makes it a fundamentally coercive institution.

MineSubCraftStarved said:

Sure, some may be more coercive than others and may infringe on the rights of other individuals or organizations than others. But they still have the same fundamental rights, regardless of whether or not they violated those same rights held by others. A murderer locked up in prison has the same amount of rights as any other normal citizen of a country. Despite the fact that one committed far more coercive acts than the other. Since individuals all share the same rights, we can apply a similar logic to organizations as they are both extensions of a person's individual liberty(the liberty of their controllers, that is). Thus, Communist China(a government) and your local coffee shop(a business) both share the same rights precisely because they are both organizations.

That is almost certainly not true. A murderer in prison does not have the same rights as me and you. Me and you, for instance, have the right to freedom of movement, while a murderer in prison does not.

An organization providing assassins for hire would not have the same rights as an organization selling onion pies. At least, I am not familiar with a single legal system in which this would be the case.

MineSubCraftStarved said:

Yet you concede it is still true in some! Thus you cannot say definitely that businesses are always non-coercive and governments are always coercive without contradicting your statement.

What I meant by that is that it is incredibly rare for private businesses to function on the basis of customers' votes. I do maintain that (legitimate) businesses are fundamentally non-coercive and governments are fundamentally coercive in all cases. Of course, when the system is corrupt and businesses start colluding with the government, the waters become much more muddled - but the coercive element of the result comes from the government and not businesses.

MineSubCraftStarved said:

Then explain to me how if you immigrate to a country, you are not consenting to its laws, rules, and regulations. If you immigrate to a country you agree to a contract, that being its legislation and constitution. How is immigration so different from moving from one company to another?

Once again, I cannot consent to something that has a coercive origin by definition. I have already explained many ways in which the way the government operates is coercive. "Consenting" to the laws when entering a country is the same type of agreement as a person "consenting" to the robber using his wallet. The fact that the person does not dispute the transfer of property on the spot does not imply that he consents to anything.

MineSubCraftStarved said:

I don't see how that's relevant... I don't believe we are discussing property principles.

Property is the cornerstone of any discussion regarding individual rights. Virtually every matter of rights can be reduced to discussing property rights.

MineSubCraftStarved said:

Perhaps for natural-born citizens. But regarding immigrants, if you move to another country that practices a policy of land removal, and then have your land taken, that was by your consent. Akin to the bank taking your house after you don't have enough money to pay your mortgage.

No, not "akin" at all. I signed an explicit contract with the bank as a result of a private negotiation, and the dispute only relates to this particular piece of property. The bank cannot force me to abide by some rules across thousands of miles, and the effects of my interaction with it are limited to the few narrow agreements we have made. I do not remember negotiating with every single American over where I can step and where I cannot on this huge patch of land - and I do not see who I could possibly negotiate with regarding, say, me building a house in the middle of the wilderness in Wyoming.

MineSubCraftStarved said:

My point is not that governments are fundamentally non-coercive(I concede that they tend to be coercive). But the point I've been making is that a government institution has the same rights as any other business or individual.

Nor does a government always need to be coercive. (Nor is it always authoritative)

Can you give a hypothetical example of a government that is not coercive, and yet that is actually a government, distinct from a regular private organization? What would it look like?